There is only one leader I can think of that had the legal authority of life or death over all of his citizens and that was Adolf Hitler and he didn't even acquire that power until well into WWII. I don't see how any sane American can support this. It is completely unnecessary and with great risks.

The authority to assassinate American citizens on American soil is not an authority that is by any stretch of the imagination necessary to wage the "war on terror." George Bush did not have this and he did fine, disagreements in military decisions aside.

Well, seeing as it violates our rights we should be very angry right now.

I'll reserve judgment on that. I'm not too convinced by prisonplanet articles, as of now.

"The "Nazi ghost" has scared millions of Europeans from caring about their blood and homeland for sixty years now, and it is about time we banish this ghost and again start to think and care about the things that (whether we like it or not) are important to us" - Varg Vikernes

How about just one halfway decent source for the claim that US citizens are being indefinitely detained, assassinated, or being labeled terrorists for holding gold assets or supporting Ron Paul.

I believe that's referring to the so-called MIAC report, a secret (leaked) document by a "fusion center" suggesting that Ron Paul bumper stickers, among other things, could be used to identify "domestic terrorists."

This is hardly as great a concern as the NDAA, but it does show how the state apparatus uses the fear of terrorism to increase power and stifle dissent. We are understandably worried about the government painting dissenters and protestors with the inherently broad and vague brush of terrorist, a tendency encouraged by the rhetoric of this document and by that of such influential private groups as the SPLC.

You, of course, brusquely dismiss this concern as "fear-mongering," but the much clearer example of fear-mongering is the fear-mongering indefatigably peddled by various government agencies, private groups, and *certain* internet commentators, regarding faceless, nameless, nebulous "terrorists" the are portrayed as lurking behind every bedpost. The state and its allies wish us to focus our fears away from the unparalleled power of the state to these declared enemies of the state, so that we worry that the state has too little power, not too much. It all the natural and predictable attitude of those in power and those that venerate those in power. If there were no terrorists, it would be necessary for the ruling class to invent them.

Before I venture into an "exhaustive research project", I'd like to know that I'm not on a wild goose chase by yet another overly paranoid conspiracy theorist. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time.

Like "terrorist," "conspiracy theorist" is another very convenient entry in the dictionary of the ruling caste. It means someone possessing views outside the bounds of respectability as defined by the social elite and who, therefore, can be summarily dismissed and mocked, without actually bothering to analyze, logically and scientifically, the views in the question.

Which reminds me, do you also believe 9/11 was an inside job, like many Ron Paul supporters believe?

No, I buy into the CONSPIRACY THEORY that 9/11 was conducted by a conspiracy of Islamic fanatics, stirred to attack the United State by such actions as the sanctions against Iraq that led the deaths of half a million children.

This, of course, does not justify the fact that said Islamists chose to attack innocent civilians themselves, despite disingenuous portrayals of criticism of Washington's bloody foreign adventures as somehow excusing reprisals by disgruntled parties that target innocent bystanders. At any rate, I am--with you, the New York Times, and the White House--a Al-Qaeda conspiracy theorist.